Bogaletch Gebre →
Women's rights advocate who campaigned to end female genital mutilation. Born in Zata, Ethiopia, she died in Los Angeles, California, on Nov 2, 2019. Read more.
Uganda chosen to host Africa's biggest HIV conference amid LGBT crackdown →
In her plenary address at the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, Cindy Kelemi, executive director of the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law, and HIV/AIDS, called attention to missing political leadership in the HIV response.
"In our beloved Africa, there are many countries with anti-LGBTI policies and laws," she told the audience in Kigali, Rwanda. "We need political leadership to remove political and structural barriers."
The very next day, ICASA officials announced that Uganda — a country that has recently renewed a crackdown on its LGBT community — would host its 2021 conference, the largest gathering related to HIV/AIDS on Africa’s calendar.
The EAT-Lancet Diet is unaffordable, but who is to blame? →
The authors of a new study on the cost of the EAT-Lancet diet have some criticism of the new guidelines, but caution that most reference diets are priced above the poverty line. They said the broader fault lies in systemic issues, such as the way food systems operate and how much people are paid for their work. The research also underscores the reality that achieving a nutritious, environmentally sustainable diet will require a lot more than focusing on just what people eat. Read more.
Sadako Ogata →
Diplomat and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Born in Tokyo, Japan, on September 16, 1927, she died in Tokyo, Japan, on October 22, 2019. Read more.
Dorothea Buck →
German victim of Nazi crimes who became an advocate for psychiatric reform. Born in Naumburg, Germany, on April 5, 1917, she died in Hamburg, Germany, on October 9, 2019. Read more.
Germany's €1B push into Africa →
As Germany rolls out programs under its €1 billion Development Investment Fund for Africa, the country’s development strategy for Africa is finally coming into focus — and it looks a lot like private sector growth. Most of the fund is dedicated to easing the entrance of German businesses into African markets or helping African businesses grow. Read more.
In Germany, right-wing violence is a problem no one wants to see →
Germany has been lauded for how it has grappled with the legacy of the Holocaust and its anti-Semitic past. A sense of collective guilt is cultivated through school tours of concentration camps and public memorials, including brass stones placed in front of apartment buildings to honor the victims of the Holocaust who once lived inside. It speaks to the seriousness with which Germans take their vow to never forget the crimes of earlier generations.
Yet even as the country has tended to its collective memory, officials have neglected a persistent strain of racism and xenophobia that education and memorials have been unable to eradicate. Such beliefs, alongside unvanquished neo-Nazi ideology, have fueled the formation of underground right-wing terrorist cells and periodically erupt in acts of violence. Read more.
The conference challenging western ideas on development →
At the Rhodes Forum, disagreement is the goal. The annual dialogue on the Greek island pulls together several hundred business leaders, academics, and the occasional head of state to debate key geopolitical issues that range from whether new institutions are needed to shape the global order, to the ongoing trade war between the United States and China.
There was little disagreement to be had, though, on the issue of sustainable development for the global south — a central topic at this year's forum, which ended Saturday. Participants charted a vision of development fueled by new infrastructure and funded not by World Bank or International Monetary Fund loans, but by less restrictive sources of financing, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Read more.
Allison Milner →
Social epidemiologist specializing in workplace mental health. Born in Melbourne, Australia, on May 1, 1983, she died in Melbourne on August 12, 2019. Read more.
The World Food Prize is courting the private sector. What could go wrong? →
“Our goal is to be the Davos of global food of global agriculture," Kenneth Quinn, the president of the World Food Prize Foundation, told Devex. "To bring the intellectual firepower together around where do we go, what are the innovations, how will they impact and affect the poorest developing countries.”
Critics, who warn that the private sector will always prioritize profit over health, worry that the World Food Prize is leveraging its influence to boost the food and agricultural industry’s role in addressing malnutrition. Their critique speaks to a larger tension within the global nutrition community about how, if at all, to engage the private sector.
John Henderson →
Paediatrician and expert on asthma and child and infant respiratory systems. Born in Renfrew, UK, on Feb 11, 1958, he died in Bristol, UK, on July 24, 2019. Read more.
Should governments see health care as an ‘investment’? →
Leaders of the global health architecture frame health funding as a capital investment. It is central to their case for domestic financing for universal health coverage — the idea that now dominates the global health agenda.
There are questions about the implications of positioning health financing as an investment, including whether that approach aligns with the vision of inclusive health services that is at the core of UHC and whether it can guarantee sustainability given the political reality that governments often prize investments that offer more immediate returns. Read more.
Patricia Bath →
Ophthalmologist who invented a new technique for cataract surgery. Born in Harlem, New York, on Nov 4, 1942, she died in San Francisco, California, on May 30, 2019. Read more.
Germany, foreign aid and the elusive 0.7% →
In 2016, Germany became the world’s second-largest aid donor by volume — but as the country grapples with its new role as a development leader, the debate over the future of its aid budget is far from settled. Civil society groups have complained a small budget increase for 2020 and the failure to commit to a United Nations goal of spending 0.7 percent of gross national income on development undercut the country’s claim of prioritizing the sector. Read more.